Like so many people around the world, I've been spending a good amount of time watching the news and web surfing for stories about the Bhutto assassination. One of the best analyses comes from Juan Cole, writing for Salon.com, focusing on Bush's ever-worsening 'Musharraf problem.' The article is especially useful for recounting the various crackdowns and exacerbations of political tensions committed by Musharraf over the last couple years. Cole ends his article with a recommendation that George W. Bush insist that Musharaff reinstate the dismissed Supreme Court justices, and that a strong demand for accountability is his only chance of getting out of this mess. But that's almost the same as telling Bush to admit that he made mistakes, and we all know that will never happen.
It is at times like this, when the incredible blunders of a head of state and leader of a nation become freshly apparent all over again, that I sit at home and wonder all over again, what can we ordinary citizens do about this? Barring anything utterly catastrophic and truly world-changing, Bush and his administration are with us for another year, basically untouchable and, given the congressional track record, virtually unstoppable. Most citizens are focusing on what and who comes after Bush as our only realistic way to back the US away from the edge of total disaster.
Investing huge and/or exclusive amounts of time and resources in the upcoming elections is a double-edged sword. On the leading edge are the positives: you'll feel empowered and constructively involved. On the back edge–the edge that always cuts you when you think the fighting is over–is the inevitability of disappointment. For one thing, your candidate may not win. Even if your candidate does win, there's every expectation based on all past historical evidence that nothing much will change substantively anyway. After all, it's the presidency we're talking about–an office locked into historical realities if there ever was one. Therefore, it stands to reason that we, the regular folks of the upper midwest a wintry world away from the distress in Pakistan, should use this moment of crisis to reinvigorate our long term efforts in all those projects that don't depend entirely on representative government, and keep building that alternative infrastructure, whatever that means.
But we'll probably give the Barack Obama campaign another $25, just for the heck of it.
On Christmas Eve we watched the 2004 documentary Wellstone! airing on Link TV. I must say, it was well done. Unfortunately the link to the DVD distributor seems to be undergoing reconstruction. The narrative is properly comprehensive and includes all the controversial moments, as well as all the triumphs. The filmmakers also offer viewers some charming old home movie footage from Wellstone's growing up years. But the documentary's best element is the way it delivers a good sense for Paul's personality. When all is said and done, I have to say the man, apart from his politics, was an extremely likable person.
Except for the obligatory smarmy ending, my only real criticism of the documentary is its neglect of the intellectual Wellstone. While it was true that he basically rejected conventional scholarship, he was very much a researcher and thinker. It was in his classes that I learned about the Scandinavian social welfare states, the work of organizer George Wiley, the Populist movement of the 1890s, and the Chicago Eight. We also read books by Right-identified thinkers like Milton Friedman and Kevin Phillips (before his ideological turnaround). Paul was a great teacher, and not only for his high energy style. He wasn't big on theory, but he had the intellectual chops. He knew all the positions, debates, and historical contexts, back and forth. Basically, it was Paul Wellstone who really got me, and probably a couple thousand other students, hooked on politics–ideological debate, activist strategy, organizational work, and, yes, horse races.
Madison is a real cat kind of town. There are cat-only clinics and cat speciality stores and at least one cat-themed coffeehouse. We live down the way from a store called Cat's Agenda. So you'd think that a tasteful, well-designed cat house would be available. But no, in this department Madison seems to suffer from the national malady: ugliness.
The visual culture scholar Jennifer Geigel Mikulay came by my house the other day. I had the pleasure of showing off the newly completed cat house. I asked her if she thought those mass retailer cat trees are as ugly as I think. She said, Well, they don't call them 'cat condos' for nothing....
The last couple weeks have been hectic. Away from home, too much driving, and no books on tape. Instead, I've been listening to my share of sports talk radio. Laurence Holmes makes the driving easier. The end is in sight. At least for a week. I'll be back in Madison on Friday night, possibly just in time to shovel some fresh snow.
The last few days have been nicely stacked with the in-person conversations that fuel my kind of work. First there was the AREA benefit, with entertaining auction action and good music. Claire Pentecost bought my offering of letterpress posters. Thank goodness, because nobody was bidding. I set the opening bid high, but the hell if I'm going to be spending a valuable week setting and printing a poster for less than $200 going to AREA. Later in the evening I was moving--as in dancing--which I think freaked some people out. People who only know me through art stuff seem to think I'm always in the head, and that breaking the moves aren't in my game. Well...they would be correct. But I do like to give it a try every now and then.
Then there was coffee on Monday with the always brilliant Theaster Gates. What a guy. How this man makes his own path has always left me in friendly awe. If a hundred pieces fall into place in the just the right way, we'll be doing something together in '08, outside of Chicago. Stayed tuned for that.
That same night I welcomed to the Hyde Park Art Center artist Laurie Jo Reynolds of the Tamms Poetry Committee as our featured guest in the Talking Point series. Wow, whatta turnout. I counted at least sixty-five people. Our intimate meeting space was standing room only. There were ex-prisoners there and families of men in Tamms now. There were Talking Point regulars from the neighborhood. There were a good number of art activist types. There were people who drove in for the event from the suburbs. Laurie Jo screened an intense video, alternately hilarious, poignant, and deeply depressing. Victor Safforld, one of the Death Row 10, addressed the crowd via amplified phone, live from the inside. It was a high energy and emotional--not the words usually associated with an art event!
From there, the same night, it was a slow drive to Urbana through thick fog. A guest critic gig called, but the top attraction was getting to hang for an evening with collaborators Ryan Griffis and Brett Bloom. The exchanges were terrific and inspiring, and all about what a regionally relevant critical art practice might look like. How we put these ideas into motion over the year coming up is the big question, so I had plenty to ponder on the return to Chicago. When I wasn't thinking about the art stuff, I was busy wondering what the records I quickly picked up at a used record store on the way out of town sound like. Delaney & Bonnie's Motel Shot, Earl Hines' Tea for Two, and Jeff Beck Live with Jan Hammer! Tomorrow night I will get to listen to them, and all the other records at home, finally.
Not long after we first moved to Madison one of my new neighbors, without prompting, assured me that our neighborhood had 'basically, zero crime.' I'm not so sure. The other night I came home from Viroqua late only to discover vandalism, theft, and a party going on, right in our backyard. They smashed our birdfeeder, and then had the nerve to dance on the tables.
But what was I doing in Viroqua, that is the more interesting story. Well, first and foremost, hanging out with my pal Mike Koppa, but that is not the interesting part. The reason for driving out on that particular day was to listen in on the CEO and the inner circle of CROPP talk about their recent trip to China. CROPP is the farmers' co-op that produces among other things the organic products marketed under the brand Organic Valley, and represents a big employer of alt-minded people in southwest Wisconsin. So these folks went to China for a little vacation and a little research. Their findings were fascinating. They spent some time visiting a large co-operative in Jilin province, in the far northeast of China, which produced organic feed, mainly for export. Because it fed an export market, the standards were fairly stringent (that is, by Chinese standards). They also spent time in Hainan, an island off the southern coast way on the other side of the country, looking at traditional small-scall ag, which was in some particular ways better than organic, that is to say, close to sustainable. And, as a contrasting experience, they also saw, smelled, tasted, and breathed some of the China's frighteningly bad pollution, as all visitors must. None of the visitors had ever been to China, so their cultural experiences were worth noting, too.
I don't know if these folks intend to move forward with any sort of relationship building in China, but they were (as most interested Americans going for the first time) bitten by the China bug. I wonder if I can find a way to encourage it.
I think we are the only people in Madison who, on the same shopping trip, go to both Willy Street Co-op and Woodman's supermarket.
Willy Street is one of those places that began in the heyday of the co-op movement and managed to change with the times. Which is to say, it is a fine example of professionalized hippiedom. Woodman's, on the other hand, is all about what ordinary people actually eat, and that includes quite a few of the products carried by Willy Street, but whole universes besides. Willy Street is basically a comprehensive selection of the kind of products which at Woodman's occupy specialty sections.
We go to Willy Street mainly for their excellent bulk products, and, if we feel like it, to get some of their lovely organic produce. We go to Woodman's for the collards, smoked turkey legs, and boxes of frozen shrimp. And, to feel like we're shopping with the rest of humanity, not just the chosen folk of the Willy Street co-op (who are, of course, different from the Beautiful Folk of the Whole Foods).
This is perhaps all another way of saying we feel more comfortable socially at Woodman's, even if we can appreciate the quality of Willy Street's products and believe in the co-op mission. It's not that we feel uncomfortable at Willy Street, it's more that we find the atmosphere there irritating and exclusive, even as we belong to it. It would all be fine, were there are no pretenses about being diverse and inclusive. And that is one source of my irritation. For example, the last item on Willy Street's FAQ page is about Cheerios. Specifically, the question is, Why does the Co-op sell Cheerios and conventionally-grown produce? Their response:
Answer: The Co-op's first three goals, as listed in our bylaws, are:
- To provide nutritious, wholesome food to the Madison community, concentrating on the east side, at fair prices—that is, as low as possible without sacrificing the Co-op's other goals;
- To provide other goods and services which are consistent with this primary activity; so that the needs of members and customers may be better served, and
- To operate Willy Street Co-operative on a sound financial basis for the long-term benefit of members and the community.
We exist to serve our members—all 14,000+ of them. Mostly, members want to buy natural and organic foods at the Co-op; but we also serve the neighborhood and want to attract new members from this diverse area. If people can find products they are used to and feel they can afford to buy them at our store, they are more likely to feel welcome.
So, carrying Cheerios allows Willy Street to say that the Co-op is making an effort toward serving a diverse customer base. But they know that they'll only ever be so inclusive. After all, their selection of conventionally-grown produce never includes collard greens--a staple in the mainstream black culture. Collards are strictly a boutique veggie at the Co-op. And Cheerios as the most ethically-challenging product a store is willing to carry? You gotta be kidding me. I guess the Hostess Mini-Muffins, the Red Baron four-meat frozen pizza, and the ten-pound buckets of frozen chitterlings (both in full supply at Woodman's) didn't make the agenda. At Woodman's, we feel like we belong, and everybody else belongs, too. At Willy Street, we feel like we belong, but that lots of other people don't. I'm the guy who shops at Willy Street while scowling. Everybody else there seems to be smiling.
Best product at Willy Street: mixed cubed fish from the seafood counter. Large pieces cut from their filets, some salmon, some halibut, etc. Good for seafood pastas and stews. Best products at Woodman's: the excellent line of dried Mexican chiles. And, yes, the big bunches of collards for 89 cents/lb.
Tonight at the Hyde Park Art Center I ran into a friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood. We had not seen each other in a couple months. Her news was mostly negative. The low point was a two-day stretch in which her locked office was burglarized in broad daylight and then a shooting occurred in her apartment building. That kind of city stress, I really do not miss.
On the other hand, the blandness of Madison's West Side makes me long for life's rough edges. There is something about the quiet of Madison that feels to me like we're evading the world's problems by living there. I say that, knowing full well from personal experience that being violated through crime sucks bad. In the city, I always felt that exercising one's tolerance for a whole range of social dysfunction was almost a kind of atonement, at least for those who belong to the privileged classes, who have a choice of where to live. Is there any sense to that idea, or is it just a guilt-induced notion? Probably the latter, but then again, some currents of liberation theology hold that the poor and wretched are closer to God, precisely because of their having experienced the complex of intimate sufferings that come with economic deprivation. But the suffering, that's the part of Christianity I could never really get with. Well, that and the Resurrection. So is it a 'grass is greener' mentality? Maybe.
That reminds me, I wanted to put on the record my tribute to Lucky Dube. The tragedy of violence, the property crime-turned-murder, will never be more sadly recalled than in the recounting of this great artist's demise. The world needed Lucky Dube. His voice gave me and millions of others pleasure and inspiration. The press, especially of the African continent, has been full of tributes, like this one. No, nothing good comes of violence.
I played one of his songs at the Patho-Selections event at the Art Center back in July. Listen here if you don't mind me blabbing....
I've been following some of the reports about the state of emergency called by Musharraf in Pakistan. The Bush administration has been watched closely for a negative response. So far, nothing more than some words of disapproval, which is to be expected. Almost all the mainstream news stories I've read have made it a point to say that Bush has not threatened sanctions or a cutoff in American aid. My question is, how can the American press (or people, especially liberals) expect any such thing when the US did absolutely nothing after Pakistani scientists were caught selling nuclear tech info, to, including, of all nations, Libya and Iran??? It was that episode which announced to all the world that Bush is in bed with Musharraf for good. This article from Forbes tells us the rest of the story, which is really all we need to know: business is not worried. The attitude of the American political class is, if business is not worried, why should the rest of the world be?
Ugh.
So, Richard J. Griffin got axed. It looks to me like he may have been a career diplomat/bureaucrat specializing in the civilian security side of the federal government, in the Secret Service and the like. I wonder if he is a fall guy in this case, a politically expendable figure without the juice to call in protection (like Gonzales and Libby could). But if Rice and company were hoping this action would help dissipate the widening private security controversy, they were wrong. Because now comes the news that immunity was granted without senior level authorization to Blackwater guards involved in September's one-sided shooting incident in which seventeen Iraqi civilians were shot to death by the security contractors, allegedly. A New York Times article tells a pretty ugly story.
Just when you think this administration cannot become more incompetent, it does. Just about any new event creates a fresh opportunity for them to do something totally idiotic--the kind of idiocy that produces real damage in the world. I don't buy the excuse that the people who granted the immunity were State Department underlings who got out of line. It all starts with the leadership, and in the George W. Bush administration, the tolerance for incompetence is set at the very top.
Living in Chicago means having your natural environment be dominated by the product of human beings. In the city our non-human neighbors were only those who tolerated and/or used all that human-produced stuff you find in such density in cities. Unless they were a nuisance (like the cockroaches usually are), we didn't pay much attention to them. We didn't have to. But here, on the far end of Madison's West Side, our non-human neighbors form an entirely different cast of characters, in, for that matter, a vastly different drama. To give you the picture, our immediate surroundings here qualify as suburban, but from the golden age of mid-century suburbia, when a home with a lawn, some trees, two bathrooms, and an attached garage seemed amazing, because the buyers had grown up in places like Chicago, in crowded, loud three-flat walk-ups and the like. A modernist pastoral describes where we live now, with split levels and small ranch houses tucked into the mature woods of the Upper Midwest. Living here, I feel like I am following in somebody's footsteps from forty years ago.
Anyway, one of the many things we are experiencing in the current home is making the acquaintence of our new non-human neighbors. Avian creatures, spiders, bats, trees, and a whole lot of different kinds of plants. Today we had the pleasure of being introduced to this little guy, in pretty much this state.
We must credit our cat, Messy, for this particular introduction. Being an indoor city cat for his whole life until six months ago, he's been allowed out for short periods, usually while I am or Sarah is out there doing something in the yard. And so it was today, his first trophy kill, hauled back into the living room. In the pic, the remains sit in our compost bucket, with the bits of tomato, mango, and cauliflower from our (the humans', that is) evening's dinner cooking. I hope I will be forgiven. I did not pull out my bird book to identify my formerly unmauled avian neighbor, before, tossing the body in a suitable corner of the backyard, on my way to the compost bin.
